Home defence

Laisurg

My area has become increasingly dodgey over the last year and i was wondering what i'm actually entitled to do to defend my home myself and my family, what sort of weapons would it be legal to use etc, would it be legal to use an air rifle, pepper spray or a knife for home defence?

Victor

You are entitled to use reasonable force. Using an air rifle on the kids retrieving the ball from your front garden would not be reasonable. In a fight, stabbing someone who has already stabbed you would normally be considered reasonable. Realise that any weapon you use could be taken off you and used against you and your family.

If there are problems in the areas, how about working at solving those problems?

PCPhoto

the best protection you can have is hidden security cameras - motion activated - loads of common sense (remembering to lock windows and turn on the alarm once you leave the house or goto sleep)

and keep valuable items out of sight from through the windows.

in the event you are in the house when a thief or thieves are around ..... best advice is to let them be - safer !!

if you do go after them - you'll find that loud noise will scare them off .... don't get stuff in preparation for a burglary !!

Laisurg

I don't mean something like that, these people would be 19-20s and have been quite violent around the area and in trouble with the guards. What i'm wondering is if they broke into my home while they were drunk or intoxicated in some other way and i felt that they would cause harm to either me or my family would it be seen as reasonable? i would rather stay away from knives but if i were to hit them over the head with a golf club in self defence would there be legal repercussions? I would be quite apprehensive about them carrying knives themselves so if such a situation were to arise i would prefer to act quickly and not give them any kind of opportunity to cause any harm.

Also PCPhoto these people are complete scum, so much so that they have even physically threated an elderly man and his dog for no reason whatsoever, there are some cameras around the area but they don't record so they don't help much, and they don't seem to take any notice of them at all, they are also much more confident than your garden variety scumbag and seem to be fond of physical confrontations.

MagicSean

Lock your bedroom door and call the Gardaí. Keep your golf club next to your bed. If you are so afraid of them you shouldn't really be going after them. It looks easy in the movies but in real life it's hard.

Reloc8

You're not going to get a blanket immunity from Boards.ie to bop someone in the head with a golf-club, nor I suggest will you be able to have in mind what would have to be a very detailed and careful analysis of the law of self-defence in the event that your house is broken into while you are in it.

The best advice is practical advice - prioritising your safety and that of your family above all else.

1. There is nothing illegal in having a golf-club in your home.

2. It would be illegal of you to hit someone with it.

3. Unless it was justified in self-defence.

4. You should ensure your home is secure, with good quality windows, external doors and locks etc. and an alarm which is monitored, and that you have an upstairs phone line which you can access without leaving your bedroom. Keeping a golf-club beside the bed is not unreasonable.

5. If your home is intruded upon at night, gather the occupants in the room with the phone, which should have a good quality door which can be secured from the inside (even push a bed against it) and call 999 or your local garda station immediately. Shout and make noise (to attract attention and to intimidate the house breaker - 'Get Out !...'Gardai'...'Help, Gardai').

6. Do not patrol the property looking for the intruder.

7. Wait for assistance.

If you are attacked you are entitled to use force to defend yourself, or another, or your property or that of another with their consent. The use of force must be reasonable in the circumstances as perceived by you, as must the extent of force used.

A knife or sharp object is usually perceived as being more offensive than defensive. Also, in order that you incapacitate someone or stop them from attacking you, you generally have to stab them repeatedly or in a vital area - this is often difficult to describe as self-defence. It would broadly have to be accepted that you genuinely had a well-founded and immediate fear for your own life before you could be acquitted of assault or a homicide offence. If the 'victim' had no similar weapon this would be very difficult. Also to be perfectly frank (thankfully) people in the full of their sense who are capable of stabbing someone are fairly rare.

A blunt object which you use to fend someone off, or strike to incapacitate, has much less of a purely offensive character than a blade. Until you use it to finish off the scumbag who you just knocked unconscious of course.

Always remember that anything in your home which can be used as a weapon, or which you pick up to use as a weapon, can be taken off you and used against you (not legally but in a practical sense). It is never a bad decision to lock the door, batten down the hatches, and await assistance. You can recover from your home being broken into. Recovering from being stabbed or beaten to the point of or beyond death takes longer, as does being imprisoned for assault, murder or manslaughter.

Weapons such as pepper spray and the like are to be frank best avoided. There are no guarantees with a drugged or intoxicated person that pepper spray or another incapacitating device will put them down unless that person is already restrained so that you can zap them at close range, and you have to be close to use them - so close that you can still be injured. If there is more than one person you will probably only get an opportunity against the first person you see. The real purpose of things like this is to allow you an opportunity to flee, which is not as good an option in the circumstance which you fear as barricading yourself into a protected space.

I'm not going into the legalities of carrying weapony stuff around outside the home as there are a number of threads on this aspect of the Firearms & Offensive Weapons legislation - there are practical reasons why this should never be attempted by a person who is not reasonably physically strong if not trained, primarily that whatever you carry will be used against you if taken off you.

I personally however see great benefit in carrying an extremely high quality umbrella, I'm not sayin' nuthin' further but these are great http://www.real-self-defense.com/unbreakable-umbrella.html. I also like to have (either with or as an alternative) a high quality and heavy duty torch, as these long winter evenings draw in.

shaunsweb

The advice from Reloc is good and is ideal (if you live in a town\city) when assistance from the emergency services would be quick. However if you are in a rural setting (when assistance may take 30 minutes) and you have intruders who are intent on stealing from you and doing harm, then I think you should be entitled to do whatever is necessary to get them out of your house. If that means they go out on a stretcher then so be it. It will be their choice as to whether they want to run or increase in their aggression. The homeowner should not be worried nor do I believe will think on the ramifications of the law if placed in such a position.

I heard of one lady who last year caught 2 guys trying to steal an emergency generator from her house. Her husband was infirm and bedridden. She went out after one and the family pet (Alsatian) dealt with the other. When the guards eventually arrived, the intruders were crying to be arrested (she had one in an armlock and was punching him repeatedly around the head), The dog had his teeth sunk into a very sensitive part of the body of the second and was not letting go. Of course, the word I heard was that the guards were very slow to retrieve the scumbags. Suffices to say, I don't think they ever returned.
Some may say this was unwarranted but hey they are the intruders!

Reloc8

shaunsweb wrote: »

Some may say this was unwarranted...

Not a bit of it - they were worth all of that and more.

Victor

shaunsweb wrote: »

Some may say this was unwarranted but hey they are the intruders!

And what if they were merely visitors who had called to the wrong house?

Reloc8

She probably wouldn't have put such people into a headlock and punched them - hopefully the dog would have been slightly more discriminating too.

Laisurg

k_mac wrote: »

Lock your bedroom door and call the Gardaí. Keep your golf club next to your bed. If you are so afraid of them you shouldn't really be going after them. It looks easy in the movies but in real life it's hard.

I didn't at any point say i was afraid, i'm just curious if such a situation would occur what i would be entitled to do to defend myself that wont end up causing me hassle and do you really think i would be going after them had i not had any experience physically defending myself before?

PCPhoto

from what I understand of the law ....the only way you would be justified in "attacking" an intruder is if they come upstairs.

if you goto them then you are making a conscious move to attack them and are not in self defence.

Personally I'd prefer if the law was changed so that anyone who breaks the law and enters another persons property - the owner or occupier of the property should have the right to attack and incapacitate - by any means necessary.

lets face it - if someone breaks into your house - they are breaking the law and unfortunately - two wrongs dont make a right - means you cant break the law to give them what they deserve.

In an ideal situation the judges would give them lengthy prison sentences - but unfortunately due to the lack of prison space available and the amount of criminals we have in this country ..... the government are currently looking at making criminals do community service instead of jail time !!!

.... if they did the job properly (the government - not the criminals) - there would be proper sentences for repeat criminals.... and mandatory sentences for multiple convictions. (ie. if you commit an offence while on bail - instant jail min 2yrs, if you have multiple offences ... min 5yrs ...and if you have previously gotten the min ... move up to 10yrs....do something to make repeat offenders think about breaking the laws.

for me - if someone doesnt respect other humans and their rights - why should that person expect human rights when in prison...bang them up.... no remission.

shaunsweb

Victor wrote: »

And what if they were merely visitors who had called to the wrong house?

So they were visitors who went to the wrong house to steal the wrong emergency generator? emmmmm....... I think not?

All I can say is well done to the lady in question for metting out some home justice.

MagicSean

Laisurg wrote: »

I didn't at any point say i was afraid, i'm just curious if such a situation would occur what i would be entitled to do to defend myself that wont end up causing me hassle and do you really think i would be going after them had i not had any experience physically defending myself before?

If you aren't afraid of them you can't really hurt them in self defence.